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ASG workers will be paid today— after all

Fri, 01/13/2012 - 5:29pm

ASG Treasurer Magalei Logovi’i says all government employees will get their pay checks today. The government pay day is Monday but because it’s a government holiday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day, ASG employees will get paid today, which is expected to clog up traffic in the town area.

Gov. Togiola Tulafono said on his radio program that he was informed last week by the Treasurer of the decrease in revenue collection, which usually occurs at this time of the year and if there are not sufficient funds this week, there will be a problem with the payroll.

When he appeared yesterday during a House hearing, Magalei gave assurance that all ASG workers will get paid today.

He told lawmakers that he’s had to advance money from ASG basic operations grant funding in order to pay government employees.

This comes as no surprise to local businesses, as Samoa News was told in December last year, by some business owners that they have noticed that ‘grant funded’ invoices are now in the same trouble as ‘local funded’ invoices. They said that ASG invoices, which were taking up to 60 days to clear for payment, are now up to 90 to 120 days, with some saying they have been waiting up to 6 months on other invoices.

Samoa News understands that the government, which usually runs federally funded grant program checks to pay vendors’ outstanding invoices, on a Tuesday and a Thursday, has cancelled at least two such runs in the past three weeks, while only paying ‘small’ amount invoices in other runs.